


And The Beat Goes On

by sleepismyfriend



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1588928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepismyfriend/pseuds/sleepismyfriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe there can be such a thing as constants at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Beat Goes On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Recovery of Lost Things](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/49118) by The_Plaid_Slytherin. 



> Immediately following the evacuation of New Caprica.

The hanger deck is a blur of disheveled faces and broken hearts, as Laura keeps her head low, arms in, and tries not to look up. 

The waving arms and desperate pleas demand her attention though, as Tory and Sam part the massive crowd on her behalf. Laura wants nothing more to stay, and console each and every loss until there are none left. However, as Tory has reiterated at least four times before stepping down from the Raptor, there is no time for processing grief right now. 

Once they're in the corridor, she relieves the former Caprica Buccaneer from guard duty with a touch to his well-sculpted arm and a soft nod. She's seen his worried eyes many times before, and pushes thoughts of gloomy New Caprican skies to the back of her mind. 

"I know she's here, Sam. Go find her." 

"Thank you, Madame President," he said, lowering his voice, as his head bowed. 

"Don't thank me yet." Laura's smirk is grateful, but far from a smile. She turns to her former aide. "I want population and supply estimates in two hours. We need to account for our people and everything we're carrying."

"With the comm chatter and overcrowding, give me three," Tory says. "But, consider it done. What should I do about running interference from Zarek?"

"If the _President_ needs me, he knows where to find me. However, something tells me he won't have to look far," Laura says. Then, she turns, and walks away.

\--

Laura's steps slow in front of Bill's quarters, as the pyramid ball sized pressure swelling in her chest threatens to explode. She touches the top of the hatch door wheel, her fingers brushing over the tarnished spots of grey metal before gripping the wheel tight, and pulling.

The hatch groans, but that isn't what affects her, what makes her stop in the hatchway with wide green eyes and an inability to breathe. No, it's the warmly lit tones of his cabin, the model ship he's still missing obvious pieces of set to one side, and the bookshelves she knows are lined with books they haven't read yet, and probably never will thanks to the Cylons. 

_"Where's your hope now, Madame President?"_ Leoben's words from repeated stays in detention seep through her, and Laura snaps back to reality, stepping inside and letting go of the hatch before his words have a chance to fester. 

The Cylons have done enough festering already, Laura thinks, her steps soft against Bill's deep burgundy and gold rug.

"I see you still know your way around." Saul's raspy voice breaks her movement, as Laura looks to her left to see Bill's best friend and her former detention partner is in fact, sitting in the middle of Bill's large brown sectional wearing everything from his frayed blue hat to muddy combat boots.

"I see you do as well, Colonel." She crosses her arms, and leans to one side, examining him at a short distance. He's still in evacuation mode, and the thin cloth over his missing right eye is streaked with mud and barely holding. "Where's Bill?"

"He's in the head." Saul points left before motioning to his eye. "Getting the stuff to change this. Didn't want to disturb Cottle again."

"Having been a prisoner of our good doctor on many occasion, I can't say I blame you." Laura's jaw clenches as the memories of sickbay and cancer and Hera overwhelm her in crashing waves against her mind, and she shakes them away. She moves around the smaller table towards him, and he leans forward. "Still allergic to the cream he recommended?"

Saul's grunt and use of obscenities are the obvious answers, and Laura's smirk returns. She steps into his personal space to see the spread of tiny red bumps across the top of his right eyebrow.

"Does it hurt?" Her hand rests on the top of Saul's hat, her thumb brushing the space above the rash.

"I'll focus on the pain when I'm dead," Saul says with a huff. It is then that Bill appears with a roll of fresh gauze and tape. 

"Hey," Bill says.

"Hey," Laura says. Saul's eye darts between the two of them, as Laura holds her hand out, and Bill tears a piece of gauze off, and hands it to her. 

Laura peels what's left of the thin muddied cloth, and drops it to the coffee table behind her. She doesn't focus on the missing right eye, the half-dried blood across the empty socket, or the memories of Saul's screams across the detention facility on the day it was removed. Instead, she gently presses the square to the appropriate place, and Bill steps forward with several pieces of tape.

"The schoolteacher has become an adequate nurse," Saul says, to which Laura smiles, and presses the tape around the edge of the gauze.

"The resistance taught me well." Laura inspects her work, taking note that at some point, he's going to need a regular eye patch from Cottle. Laura and Saul share glances, and there's a small smirk sitting at the corner of his lips. 

"I'd better get to CIC—" Saul says, standing, as Laura steps back. "Make sure those idiots have us pointed in the right frakkin' direction."

"Far far away from the Cylons," Laura says, and Saul smirks again, shaking his head. 

"I'll be there in fifteen," Bill says. Neither Bill nor Laura watch Saul leave, as Laura's head bows, her hair falling in an auburn curtain across her face. 

"I should go too," Laura says, the curtain of hair disappearing, as she pushes it behind her ears. Her eyes meet Bill's, and the breath in her throat catches. 

_"He will not save you,"_ Leoben says, plaguing her again, as though the figurative self in her mind knows the answer to every question. Unlike the beginning of their journey, the blue of Bill's eyes does little to reassure her now. 

"It's good to see you," Bill says, and Laura sighs. She has heard these words before, and life isn't all that different. He motions to the leftover gauze and tape in his hand. "Be right back."

"Alright."

\--

It's been ten minutes, and Bill has yet to reappear from the head. She doesn't hear the sounds of stress shaving like she has before, the scrapings of an altogether too dull razor against crevassed skin with mumbled cursing at signs of a nick. Instead, the sounds of Galactica ghost along the room, and that sooths her. 

Maybe there can be such a thing as constants at the end of the world.

Sitting on the sofa, Laura stares at the untouched glass of water on the coffee table in front of her. She blinks twice, running figurative capacity numbers of each ship they have left in the fleet, and how they could allocate housing at somewhat comfortable levels. 

"Can I get you anything?" Bill appears, his outer uniform jacket gone, and a towel around his neck. His gaze is much softer than before, and Laura tries not to let her rigid back relax against the smooth expanse of sofa. 

"No, I'm fine." Laura clears her throat, pausing to touch the spot next to her before placing her hands back in her lap. Bill then pauses, as if he's having an inner argument whether he should be the staunch admiral from before New Caprica or just Bill from after. "Come sit, please. I promise I won't bite."

"Laura—" Bill drops the towel to the coffee table.

"You did what you had to do, Bill," she says, licking her bottom lip. "We would have never made it off that mudball if you hadn't."

"I'm still sorry." 

"Don't be. You did the smart thing, and it worked in our favor." Laura tries to smile, and this time, a tiny smile comes out. There are several seconds of silence. "Though I've noticed your books are in ridiculously good order. You must not of read any while you were away."

"No," he says. "I couldn't exactly concentrate."

As if a switch has been flipped, Laura watches Bill cross the cabin, and pick a slender volume from one of his bookshelves. When the book falls open, he checks the page before making his finger a placeholder, and cross back towards her.

"Have you ever read anything by Darius Xeno?" 

Laura's eyes widen, and the genuine smile she's hidden deep down emerges full force. "My gods—Where did you—I used to read him all the time back in college. His dreamy idealistic rhythms of what had, what was, and what could be? Nothing quite compared. At least, at twenty-two, I thought nothing could compare. My literature professor actually knew Xeno, and never failed to romanticize how his poetry marginalized romanticism."

Bill sits next to her.

"I always thought he was a tad melodramatic, but Carolanne liked him." Bill shrugs. "A woman thing, probably."

"Yes," Laura smiles, and nods her head. "Though his earlier works are much eloquent than his later ones. Some say as his heart changed, his work didn't survive the process."

"We'll stick to the early ones then." Bill sits back, and without thinking, Laura leans back against the sofa, resting her head on his shoulder while pulling her legs under her. She allows one hand to touch his arm, and murmurs a small sigh of relief. 

"What about CIC?"

"Saul can man the helm for a bit." He flips several pages in the book, and Laura finds her mind drifting to the obvious things that have yet to be said.

"Thank you for coming back for us." She stares forward, feeling the soft skin of his bare arm against her cheek. "It was awfully nice of you."

"Thank you for still being there to come back for." He kisses the top of her head before pulling away to read. 

Laura smiles, closes her eyes, and snuggles in further.


End file.
